Feelings v. Policy: Tomi Lahren and Chelsea Handler Debate

Tomi Lahren and Chelsea Handler engaged in a heated debate at Politicon on Saturday. The two discussed several topics ranging from healthcare to transgenders in the military.

The debate was highly anticipated, as both speakers are incredibly influential and outspoken regarding political issues, but represent opposing ideologies.

Tomi’s arguments were logically driven, while Chelsea offered many emotionally charged statements often beginning with, “I feel like…”. Chelsea did provide some facts, but she often used feelings to support her argument. In the context of a policy debate, subjective feelings cannot play a role. She failed to refute Tomi’s logic and resorted to cynical remarks about President Trump.

Healthcare

On the topic of healthcare, Chelsea stated that she wants people “to feel safe” and believes that “healthcare is a basic fundamental right.” As I’ve explained in a previous post, healthcare is a finite commodity, which among other reasons, renders it incompatible with the definition of a human right. In this case, Chelsea’s argument is emotionally driven, non-factual, and illegitimate.

Transgenders in the Military

In regard to the issue of transgenders in the military, Tomi offered numerous logical reasons as to why President Trump’s reinstatement of the ban was positive. She often referenced the effectiveness of the military and the strict nature of the military’s membership requirements.

Tomi stated that medical professionals currently recognize gender dysphoria as a psychological condition. She is correct, as this is the current position of the American Psychiatric Association. Chelsea scoffed in response, and her followers booed from the audience. These emotional responses in no way impacted the legitimacy of that fact. Instead, Chelsea should have explained why those with gender dysphoria are mentally stable enough to join the military. Unfortunately for Chelsea, her disapproval of a fact does not change its veracity and only weakens her own argument.

Chelsea attempted to defend transgender military membership by stating that, “it’s not easy for these people to even walk out the door, never mind walk into the military.” While this may be true, it does not change the facts that Tomi presented. The hardships that transgenders face are completely irrelevant to American defense policy.

Chelsea then went on to advocate for the importance of transgenders feeling more accepted in society. However, a debater loses as soon as he or she uses feelings to support an argument. The use of feelings is either a cop-out needed for a lack of actual logic to support one’s argument, or the debater truly thinks feelings should impact policy, in which case he or she does not understand the role of policy.

Emotion cannot drive policy implementation because the resulting law will be ineffective and potentially harmful to those it affects. Chelsea and her followers’ feelings regarding transgenders serve no purpose in this discussion.

Chelsea’s Hypocritical Mistake

Following the transgender debate, Tomi and Chelsea tackled the topic of President Trump. Tomi mentioned that she supported Marco Rubio in the primaries. Chelsea’s response was demeaning and hypocritical. She deemed Senator Rubio a “non-man,” insinuating that she disliked Marco Rubio because he wasn’t masculine enough. Hypocritically, she made this statement just minutes after arguing that transgenders need to feel more accepted in our society. This is simply another example of the left’s selective tolerance.

Regardless of her hypocrisy, Chelsea’s feelings did not matter in this debate and only suggest that her arguments lacked a logical foundation.

2 Comments

Katie Jonhson
on August 3, 2017 at 7:37 am

You’re either a sociopath, or have absolute hate for Chelsea Handler, or both. People debate to win others to their side of an argument, and a critical part of debating is to appear unbiased and fair when presenting arguments, neither of which you did as you clearly indicated who you thought who the debate within the first 3 sentences of the article, who’s going to read the entire emotionally charged article if we know what you’re conclusion is? Seems like you fell for the same trap Chelsea did by being subjected by purely.

Hi Katie, thanks for reading my article! Firstly, deeming me a sociopath or a hater must be a tactic to elicit emotion to support your argument, as I have not said anything that would indicate I am either (look up the definition of a sociopath). Secondly, I am writing for The College Conservative, a clearly biased website where I, and every other writer, simply give our honest opinions. We do not claim to be unbiased, otherwise our site would have a different name. Thirdly, an article is not a debate, it is simply an expression of opinion, and no where in my article did I use emotion to support my claims.